


it's in our blood

by inberin



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-27
Updated: 2016-07-27
Packaged: 2018-07-27 03:30:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7601701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inberin/pseuds/inberin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i> "Look, bottom line is that I wanna help in any way I can, you know? I know I don't know how to drive, but you can just teach me! No one's gonna card me out there, and—"</i> </p><p><i>"Bokuto," Tetsurou says, clapping his hands onto strong, toned shoulders. "You literally don't have any arms."</i><br/> <br/> <br/>basically, magic roadtrips: a modern magic au</p>
            </blockquote>





	it's in our blood

**Author's Note:**

  * For [salsae](https://archiveofourown.org/users/salsae/gifts).



> rated G, but please note some expletives and cursing, as well as mentions of sickness!! apart from that i dont think ill need to add any warnings, though if any need to be added don't hesitate to let me know! i am so bad with tags there are so many
> 
> if u r my recip i've left a little note for u at the end! if u r not my recip bless your heart i hope you like magical creature gays and weird shiny majyyk forests (*＾∀ﾟ)ъ
> 
> i wrote this to [it all starts here by magic man](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGnZocmwdQU) as requested by my recip, so you can use that as a backing track if u like that stuff. it also provided the title!

Bokuto’s voice is loud and brash, but determinedly sulky. "Of course I can drive a van!" he tells Tetsurou for the third time in five minutes. 

Tetsurou, having heard this for the third time in five minutes, is unimpressed. "You can barely fit in the front seat."

"I'll, uh, figure something out. It'll be fine!"

He crosses his arms and leans further back onto the hood of his fresh new rustbucket. "You're not coming with, Bokuto."

Bokuto's not a kid anymore (they both haven't been for years, really), but still manages to pull off a sullen little pout. "I'm not a kid anymore," he says, unfolding and refolding one massive, speckled, grey wing to prove his point, which also happened to be the reason he couldn't fit into the driver's seat.

"Evidently," Tetsurou responds, just as pointedly. The pout just gets bigger. "Look, we don't know what's in there, now. It could be dangerous."

"Kai says it'll be in and out real quick, as long as we don't do anything stupid."

That, at least, was true. They had gotten into the forest just fine the first time, looking none the worse for wear. But Kai and Yaku kept their doing of stupid things to a minimum. Tetsurou, on the other hand, had less spotless a record, usually if it involved one Bokuto Koutarou.

"And that's why you don't have to come," Tetsurou tries to conclude, but Bokuto's having none of it.

"It's a lot safer for a driver to be accompanied by someone they can take turns driving with! I don't want you falling asleep at the wheel at 3am!" 

"I'm literally nocturnal."

"Or 3 p.m. then, whatever." Bokuto scrunches up his face in frustration. "Look, bottom line is that I wanna help in any way I can, you know? I know I don't know how to drive, but you can just teach me! No one's gonna card me out there, and—"

"Bokuto," Tetsurou says, clapping his hands onto strong, toned shoulders. "You literally don't have any fucking arms."

That, too, was true. "That's so super rude of you, Kuroo," says Bokuto, not the least bit offended.

"If you can't even pick up a pen, how are you supposed to turn a wheel?"

"If this is about my studies, I'll have you know I aced my papers."

"You passed."

"I _aced_ them!"

Tetsurou shoves himself off the van, and it complains about his weight with an unimpressed clanking. "It's not like I'm leaving today, anyway," he says, stretching his arms out in front of him as he steps out onto the asphalt. "Why're you so wound up?" 

If anyone should be wound up, it should be him. Yaku's waiting, he reminds himself. Every second passed is a second wasted.

There's a heavy beat of wings followed by the distinct rustling of a branch snapping back to its original place, and then Bokuto's beside him, his feathers folding neatly over each other like a million sheathing swords. Tetsurou never gets tired of watching."I'm worried, you shit!" Bokuto says, indignant. "You can't just go canting off alone into some gorge on someone else's favour, you know?"

"It's not just a favour. He's family." Tetsurou rifles through his pockets for gum or something to distract his mouth, but comes up with nothing. "You all are."

"That's nice of you to say, Kuroo," says Bokuto as he chews on his lip, "but my crew isn't your crew and that means I'm a someone else."

Tetsurou lets his breath leave him in a long, drawn-out hiss. "Whatever."

 

Kenma yawns widely. 

"Poor, sad human," Tetsurou tells them, testing the weight of his backpacks and slinging one over his shoulder. "You sleep at three. Every day. And then you wake up at ass o’clock for training."

"You barely sleep."

"I’m also not human."

"Obviously," Kenma says, scuffing the front of their sandal on the concrete. "Absolutely can't wait for you to leave."

"That's a bit more like it." Tetsurou jangles his keys. He'd attached a new little cat silhouette keychain onto it, courtesy of the littler ones, and it tinkles merrily with the older knickknacks on the key ring. The night air feels crisp on his face. Kenma sneezes. "You didn't have to follow me out here," Tetsurou says.

"I wake up at ass o’clock every day, anyway." Kenma pulls their _haori_ tighter around their shoulders. It’s dark out, but not dark enough for a human to get lost going home, so Tetsurou relaxes a bit. He’d hidden the van a little ways into the wood, away from questioning eyes, but mostly from the curious claws of the littler ones. 

The awful paint job comes into view between some bushes and a ginkgo tree, and Tetsurou puts a hand on Kenma’s shoulder. "Well, this is my stop. Run along now, little Kenma. Nothing to see here."

Kenma gives him a withering look that raises some hairs on the back of Tetsurou's neck. It’s always strange to be reminded that the final remnant of his childhood is growing up as a powerful _onmyoji_. "Don’t call me if you’re stuck in the forest. I’ll pretend I can’t hear you.”

Tetsurou grins. “No promises.”

Kena sneezes, or scoffs, or something in between. Immediately after, there’s a great rustling in the trees, and something falls through the branches, followed by a great many leaves. It lands behind the van with a loud groan of pain.

“That’s not Shiro,” Tetsurou says, preparing to turn.

“No, it’s not,” replies Kenma, with one hand reaching within their _yukata_ for a manikin or something. 

“Yeah, because it’s me!” says Bokuto’s voice. The distinctive grey-and-brown pattern of his wings flashes in the moonlight as he struggles to get back onto his feet, and Tetsurou exhales. “I’m okay!”

Kenma scowls in a most inelegant fashion, and Tetsurou laughs even as he flaps his hands to get the residual magic out of his arms, the claws and fur on his fingers slowly turning back into calloused, but human skin. “What kind of great flier are you?”

Bokuto snorts haughtily. “A very good one! I just...flew into a branch.”

Kenma continues to stare as Tetsurou guffaws. “You following Kuro, Bokuto?”

“Yeah! I’m gonna learn how to drive.”

“You don’t have any arms.”

“Boo. Now I know why you guys are friends,” calls Bokuto.

“We’re both honest and generous and incredibly beautiful,” says Tetsurou. “You are absolutely correct.”

Bokuto’s up on a branch with a great sweep of his wings, and he sticks his tongue out at them. There’s a fully-packed satchel slung over one of his shoulders, tied as close to his neck as possible so it doesn’t accidentally slip off. “You’re gross, but I’m gonna come along no matter what you say.”

If someone shows up fully packed and ready to go, then there isn’t really much reason to protest anymore. “Okay,” Tetsurou says.

“Oh. Really?” says Bokuto. “Okay.”

“I’m not,” Kenma says. “I’m leaving.”

“Okay,” Bokuto and Tetsurou chorus in unison.

Kenma pulls out a manikin for real this time, muttering softly over it and letting it flutter towards the forest floor. There’s a small burst of light just before it gets soiled, and in its place is a pure white cat with wide yellow eyes, calmly cleaning its face. “Let’s go, Shiro,” Kenma says, and the cat leaps to its feet, first bounding around its master’s feet with impossible grace and ease, then towards the road, illuminating the way home.

“When we get back,” Bokuto says once Kenma’s out of earshot, “could you get Kenma to summon Ukki for me? I miss her.”

“Ask them yourself.” Tetsurou picks up his bags from where he’d dropped them, and heads towards the van.

“Aw, but what if they banish me or something? I don’t wanna disappear. Or if they summon Shiro instead? Shiro hates me!”

“Harpies don't get banished for long. And Shiro wants to eat you because you look like a giant chicken, there’s a difference. Get over here, we gotta see if you can fit in the back of the van.” 

Only one of the van’s back doors decide to open, today, and Tetsurou’s in the middle of trying to shove Bokuto into the van without losing too many of his feathers when there’s a soft meow next to him. “I thought you were going home,” Tetsurou says.

Shiro blinks up at him with Kenma’s eyes, a small embroidered drawstring bag in its mouth. Tetsurou laughs softly. “They couldn’t have given it to me themselves?” he asks as he puts the little bag into his pocket, then scratches Shiro behind the ears for its trouble. The shikigami purrs, satisfied, and disappears back up the road, quick as a blink.

“Kuroo,” Bokuto whines. He looks quite the sight, with one talon caught on the door handle and a wing pinned between his back and the door. “Help. _Please_.”

“I’m coming, I’m coming, don’t pull off the damn handle, please. We’ve got a grand total of one door right now and I’d really like to keep it.”

“I’m trying,” Bokuto says, right before he tumbles into the back of the van after Tetsurou hits him with a hearty shove. “Ow.”

“Sorry. Oh, your bag’s spilling.”

Bokuto stares balefully at the five apples rolling out onto the rubber mats of the back of the van, accompanied by a packet of jerky sliding slowly out of the bag. “Aw.”

“I got it, I got it,” Tetsurou says, clambering into the back with Bokuto so he can retrieve all the apples and shove them in, along with the jerky. He loosely laces the satchel shut. “There, all good.”

Bokuto’s still staring at the satchel. “Thanks,” he says, after a pause.

The driver’s seat is worn, used leather, and it’s a strange change from tatami mats and hardwood floors. But not an unpleasant one. Tetsurou settles in and folds his legs onto the pedals. The moment he shuts the door, the divider to the back slams open with a small scattering of feathers and a loud “BOO!”

“Ha ha,” says Tetsurou, hoping his voice doesn’t tremor and give away how his heart is hammering inside his chest. “Do not do that again.”

“Okay, okay, jeez.” Bokuto settles himself against a wall and folds his wings around himself. “How long until we get there?”

“Isn’t it a little early to be asking that question? I haven’t even started up the van yet.”

“Always good to be prepared!”

“Honestly,” gripes Tetsurou, but he’s smiling as he turns the key in the ignition. Then he stops smiling, because the van coughs a couple of times, but doesn’t start up. “Are you fucking kidding me,” he snarls, turning the key a couple more times.

“Maybe if I kick the van from the back?” Bokuto supplies helpfully.

“Not with those claws of yours, you won’t.” He gives the key one last ferocious twist, the van lets out a long screech, and finally, grudgingly, starts up a rumble. Tetsurou sighs, kicking the van into reverse. “Let’s get out of here.”

They back out of the grass and muck of their forest and out onto the road, where Tetsurou executes a clumsy turn that almost hurls Bokuto into the opposite wall. It’s a while before they’re out of the small scattering of houses between thick, tall trees—there’s the rickety wooden building where Tetsurou lives with his littler ones, with Kai and Yaku, and there’s Kenma’s room, with the light still on and a cat-shaped shadow in the corner of the window—but then they’re suddenly thrust out onto the main roads, leaving the moonlit tips of their forest behind them.

Bokuto’s looking through the remaining unboarded window in the back doors, and Tetsurou catches glimpses of glittering lamp-light and the more straightforward glare of headlights behind them. The only hints of where they’d come from would’ve been mud-tracked tires and grass stains on the paint.

“Hey,” Tetsurou says.

Bokuto turns to look at him through the rearview. The streetlights here aren’t blue but a musty white, and Bokuto’s face looks small and stark as his features flash with light. “Yeah?” he asks.

Tetsurou has to look away, has to remind himself about the task at hand. About Yaku. “We’ll be back quicker than you know it,” he says to the road—(to himself)—to Bokuto. 

“You always make good on your word,” Bokuto says, half to himself, then grins with all his pointed harpy teeth. “I know we will!”

The tension rushes out of Tetsurou’s shoulders, and he exhales. “Might wanna take a nap now, if you like. I’ll be okay for the night.”

“Way… ahead of… you,” Bokuto mumbles, yawning, then there’s a rustling of feathers and a soft pressure against Tetsurou’s back as Bokuto nestles against the back of the driver’s seat. “Night.”

Tetsurou rolls down a window to let his thoughts out and the cool night wind in.

 

The sun’s just beginning to rise by the time Tetsurou hears a groggy ruffling of feathers, followed by the gentle scraping of careful claws on rubber mats. It’s still a while before Bokuto peeks through the partition to yawn widely at Tetsurou, though. “Hi,” he eventually says, voice rough.

Soft music strains out of the radio, as soft as it’d go. The disc had been courtesy of Kenma and his littler ones, while Yaku complained about how this meant they’d have to buy a CD player. Kai had blinked big, beautiful eyes at them all, laughed, and requested one for himself despite Yaku’s squawks.

Tetsurou has to get home. He has to.

The road stretches out ahead of them, empty of everything that isn’t two boys in a van packed full of hope and nothing else, so Tetsurou takes a moment to watch the way the amber tints the warm grey of Bokuto’s feathers as he pulls his wings closer towards the faint cool of the air-conditioner, to watch the way it slants off equally bright eyes as Bokuto slowly un-squints them. “Hey,” he replies, a little late.

Bokuto rubs absently at the back of Tetsurou’s seat with his cheekbone. “I’m hungry.”

“Eat the stuff in your satchel?”

“I’m saving that for the forest.” Bokuto yawns again. “Could I borrow some of yours?”

“Very funny. There’s stuff in one of my bags,” says Tetsurou as he turns back to the road. “Pass it to me so I can open it for you. Or you can hunt or something. Do you still do that?”

“Mm. I don’t know.” A backpack fit to bursting with chips, if Tetsurou remembers correctly, tumbles through the partition and into the passenger seat. “I haven’t tried in a while. Probably forgot how to.”

Tetsurou steadies the car with one hand as he pulls the bag towards him with the other, tugging the zip open. There’s the expected crinkling of snack packets, but then an apple rolls out and into his lap. “Yeah, you’d probably fly into a tree now or something. Here.”

“Not the flying! I can fly perfectly fine, fuck you,” Bokuto retorts before he sinks his teeth into Tetsurou’s proffered apple and pulls it back with him. He’s nestled it onto his knees to nurse when Tetsurou turns to check. “I just don’t think I remember how to stalk prey anymore.”

A faint memory of lunches shared during break, and buying dinners for his tiny harpy friend before Bokuto had been taught the concept of shame. “That’s good, isn’t it? That you guys don’t have to hunt for food anymore, I mean.”

Bokuto chews thoughtfully for a while. “I guess,” he says, through a mouth full of crunched-up apple and sharp pointy teeth.

“Do you miss it?”

“Maybe.” More quiet chewing. “It felt good. But eating feels better, so I don’t mind that much.”

“I wish you could’ve played volleyball,” Tetsurou blurts out.

The disc in the system clicks, and the track changes. Bokuto blinks big, yellow eyes at him. Half of his face lies in the shadow of the van, and his right eye glows. “I did, though?”

“As in, you know. Competitively.” Tetsurou taps his dark, pointed nails on the worn steering wheel. “With Kenma and me.”

Bokuto crunches up the rest of the apple, core and all, and lets out a belch. “Not humanoid enough! Also," he adds in an awful rendition of Tetsurou's voice, " _Bokuto doesn't have any fucking arms._ And I can actually fly, so take that you dumb jocks.”

Tetsurou lets himself laugh. “Thanks.”

The sun stops shadowing Bokuto’s face in dramatic ways, settling on a gentle post-dawn sky that isn’t too blue or too grey, but a pale shade somewhere in the middle. It’s easy on the eyes. The rustbucket rumbles quietly under Tetsurou’s hands.

“Are you sleepy?” asks Bokuto.

“Not yet,” Tetsurou replies, and turns up the music because Bokuto’s awake now, and he needs to be, too.

“When do I get to learn how to drive?”

“Never,” Tetsurou snorts.

They sit for a while longer, staring as the nothingness of the road goes by. Occasionally they’d be passed by a car, and then Tetsurou would make an irked noise, and then Bokuto would laugh. And then, silence.

Is this how it’s going to be?

No, Tetsurou’s just tired. He’d been driving for the whole night, after all. It’s about his bedtime now, the sun beginning its ascent into a sky that’s more blue than pale now. The beat of a song builds itself up, drops, and starts up an enthusiastic thumping that Tetsurou really isn’t feeling, even though he’s always feeling it around Bokuto Koutarou.

“Hey, Kuroo,” Bokuto Koutarou says. “Are we there yet now?”

Tetsurou eyes an exit as they drive past. “We’ve been going pretty slow but we’ve missed most of the traffic. So maybe soon.”

“Nice.” There is a pause. “Because I really gotta pee.”

Tetsurou blinks. “Um, I think we passed a rest stop, like? Ten minutes ago? Do you need to go really really bad?”

“Yeah! But it’s alright, dude. I can just open the door.”

“What? No!” Tetsurou is _scandalised_. “We are _civilised peoples._ ”

“What?” Bokuto says. “No no no! I meant I can open the door, fly off someplace private, and come back!”

“Then just say so next time!” Tetsurou checks behind them, then pulls them over to the side of the expressway with only minimal screeching from the van. They’re surrounded by mostly trees. Bokuto pokes experimentally at the door and grins sheepishly, so Tetsurou has to get out and give him a hand. (Ha.)

Bokuto half-tumbles, half-flaps out of the van once he’s squeezed out of the single door, stumbling to his feet, his talons scratching on the tarmac. The wings on his back fan out wide, almost three times his height. They’re scattered with shadows from the shade of a tree, and carefully avoiding smacking Tetsurou even as Bokuto twitches them this way and that, as if trying to roll out kinks in his joints. He really is large for a harpy, Tetsurou realises, and silently thanks the government for integration of harpy society into the big human cities.

“What’s up?” Bokuto asks, flapping his wings experimentally so there’s a soft breeze across Tetsurou’s feet.

“Don’t you have something to do?” chides Tetsurou.

“I mean, if you insist,” says Bokuto all innocently before he takes a running leap into the sky.

There is a great beating of wings, and Tetsurou has to shield his eyes from the updraft of leaves and dusty summer road. When he lifts his hand to look up, Bokuto’s already ascending with sure, steady beats of his wings, a large shadow stark against the clouds.

 

Tetsurou wakes up with a start. What time is it? Where is he? The sun is bright, much brighter than before, so...late morning? The dashboard clock confirms this in lackluster red digits. He’s in the van, at the side of a road. Where’s Bokuto? No, what? Why is he here? Wh—

Yaku.

He groans and bumps his head against the steering wheel to clear it of sleepy cotton wool. The van lets out a sharp honk, and he startles hard enough to hurt his knee. At the same time, there’s a thump from above him, accompanied by a loud screech.

Okay, so he’s found Bokuto. It takes him a while to get the window down—those stupid old turning mechanisms always jam—and by the time he does, Bokuto’s slid off the roof of the van, spreading his wings out to steady himself with enough strength to shove a good deal of speckled feathers into Tetsurou’s face.

He snatches his wings back the moment he hears Tetsurou’s muffled shriek. “Holy shit! Dude, I’m so sorry! Are you okay? Kuroo!”

Tetsurou pulls himself back up to a sitting position. “I’m fine, but I think the gear shift permanently dented my back.” He glares at Bokuto, who cowers a little. “What were you even doing up there?”

“Uh. Just watchin’ the cars go past?” 

“Did you pee for three hours or something?”

Bokuto shuffles his wings. “No.”

“Then why didn’t you just—” Tetsurou pauses, then runs a hand over his face. “Right, just. Hold on, I’ll let you back in.”

It’s a little easier to get Bokuto through the single door now, and he immediately shuffles all the way to the wall, folding his wings around himself. “Okay, I’m in, we can go now. What are you doing?”

“What does it look like I’m doing?” Tetsurou heaves himself up and onto the rubber mats. The back of the van is musty and warm, and it’s really no wonder why Bokuto’s always pressing himself into the space between the two front seats for the air-conditioning. He settles himself beside one soft, firm wing and pulls his knees to his chest. “Hi.”

Bokuto blinks at him, wide-eyed. “Um. Hey?”

“Thanks.” Tetsurou looks at his feet. “I feel better now. More awake, at least.”

“That’s. That’s good! Good,” Bokuto says. “It’s good.”

“It is,” replies Tetsurou. “Good, I mean. Now I can keep driving. And we can keep going towards a magical forest to save our friend.”

“Yes,” Bokuto says.

They sit there for a couple of seconds.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Tetsurou grabs Bokuto’s wing and shoves it aside and behind him, then shuffles into Bokuto’s shoulder. “There.”

“Oh,” says Bokuto.

Tetsurou is suddenly acutely aware of the fact that, despite being a good three centimetres taller than Bokuto, their shoulders are the same height when seated. His own might be a little lower, actually. “Thanks. And not for the nap, though I’m still glad for that.” He doesn’t know what he’s doing. But he’s tired, and Bokuto is always smiling, always inviting. “Thank you for coming.”

Bokuto drapes one wing over Tetsurou’s back. It’s heavy and warm. Safe. “I’m happy, too,” he says.

 

By the time they enter Sendai, they’d already polished off three bags of chips and one of Bokuto’s precious apples in the name of brunch. By the time they’re even anywhere near the hot springs resort, Bokuto had already convinced him to open a fourth bag and to leave the now-empty first backpack in the van while they go searching through the gorge.

“That’s a lot of people,” Bokuto says through a mouth full of potato. “Where are we gonna park this thing?”

“I don’t know,” Tetsurou replies, stuffing more chips into his mouth as he eyes the tourist trap from where they’re severely double-parked. “But it’s not going to be inside. I’m wrung dry from the tolls.”

“Can we park it in the forest again?”

“There are too many people to risk that.” Tetsurou chomps on a chip and holds a handful out to Bokuto. “We should’ve left in the evening instead and tried to park in the early hours. Damn.”

“Hey, Kuroo,” says Bokuto conspiratorially through a mouth full of more potato. “This is gonna sound super crazy, but I have an idea.”

“I love your ideas,” Tetsurou hisses appreciatively, crushing the half-empty chips bag in his hands. “Hit me.”

 

At 11.17 a.m., a Sendai police station receives a phone call. The residents of a small house along a secluded little road may or may not have seen a giant black cat pick up an entire van in his huge jaws and leap away if it had been holding nothing heavier than a kitten. They may or may not have also seen a large grey-winged owl harpy circling around the yokai and trailing after it as it leapt away. The police officer muffles a sigh, thanks them for their call, hangs up, and files an automobile theft report.

 

Once the van had been safely tucked away in a concealing copse of trees, Tetsurou releases the magic on his body and lets himself slowly shrink back to a smaller, more fragile, more fallible form. His strength is halved, then halved again, until he finally pushes himself to get back up on his feet with two legs and a pair of arms so, so weak.

“Nice!” Bokuto laughs, bumping into Tetsurou’s side with mirth. “I can’t believe you were actually able to do that!”

Tetsurou blinks. “Do my eyes look normal?

Bokuto stares critically at Tetsurou’s face. “Well, they look distinctly abnormal to me,” he says, raising one wing joint to his chin. “They kinda look like...mazes. Because I get lost in them so often.”

“Shut up!” But it gets a laugh out of him anyway. Bokuto always gets him good. “Seriously.”

“Okay, your left eye still looks really catty.”

“Right. What about now?”

“Heck lot better. Also, really loving the yellow in your right eye? But I don’t think that was there before?”

Tetsurou huffs and rubs at his eyes. “This is why I hate doing full shifts.”

“But it worked, didn’t it?” Bokuto grins wide. “Now we can go look for the flower.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” Tetsurou says, adjusting the straps on his second backpack. Bokuto himself bounces a little to make sure his satchel isn’t going to slide off his person. “Let’s do this.”

They’d managed to travel some distance away from the resort in their attempts to go unnoticed, but the last time he’d been here, the flower had been in the gorge itself, which had been crawling with tourists. “Shit,” Tetsurou snarls, examining the small clusters of people from their vantage point. “We’ll have to wait for nightfall.”

“We can’t just run in?”

“The last thing I want is for us to be arrested or kicked out of this place.”

“I could fly in, grab the flower, and come back here.”

“If you shred the flower, it’ll be useless. And if we just take the flower, there won’t be a second one ever again.” There’s a sharp prick against his finger, a splinter from digging his fingers into the bark of the tree. He hadn’t noticed he was doing that.

Bokuto had. “Stop that, you’ll hurt the tree!” he scolds, smacking Tetsurou in the face with a wing until he removes his hand from the branch. “Aw, shit, you got a cut!”

A small droplet of blood beads up onto his skin as he pries the splinter out, so Tetsurou puts it into his mouth to suck on, muttering an apology to the great oak. “I’ll be fine.” But Bokuto doesn’t stop pouting at him. “What?”

“We have to wait till night-time, right?” Bokuto bounces a little on their branch, and the branch bounces along with him. “And this is a magical forest, right? Let’s go sight-seeing!”

Tetsurou ponders this for a moment. That had been partially the reason why he’d been here the first time, with Yaku and Kai. For the fireflies, and the birds, and the waterfalls. Small things that added up to the magic of this place, untouched even by the unrelenting waves of tourists. And the flower, naturally, a myth passed down through the generations, which they’d turned into a vacation disguised as a treasure hunt.

And now, Bokuto, curious, with a grin like darting flame.

He exhales. “We’ve got a lot of time to kill. What do you wanna see first?”

 

The kindly great oak points them in the direction of the nearest waterfall—Tetsurou can’t hear the distinct words; he’s no dryad, but he gets blurry impressions of a well-worn path, a turn into denser brush, past an outcropping—and Bokuto’s clumsy at best on his feet, so they take a slightly more airborne route through the canopy. Occasionally clawed feet would snag on the tops of the trees, scattering leaves all over Tetsurou as he follows grey wings from branch to branch, and then Bokuto would laugh as though clusters of brown-and-red leaves stuck in Tetsurou’s spiky hair was the funniest thing in the world.

A waterfall is always heard before it’s seen. But Tetsurou is leaping from branch to branch in the non-silence of the forest one second and he’s skidding to a stop by the next, the sudden roaring of the waterfall in front him drowning out everything else. Bokuto lets out a triumphant cheer ahead of him, folding his wings into a dive, then snapping them open at the last second, speeding back up towards Tetsurou so fast he knocks them both off the branch and into the river below.

 _I didn’t bring a change of clothes,_ is what Tetsurou wants to say once he’s resurfaced from the freezing water, but Bokuto is splashing about in the slow river like a sparrow in a birdbath while wearing his best shirt, an old, off-white print tee with the sleeves torn off and laced together at the back with shoelaces. Everything is carefully re-hemmed with mismatched thread by hand, probably by Akaash, or Washio. The words catch in his throat. “I’ll make you regret putting a cat anywhere near water!” he yells instead over the sound of the falls, shifting his hand into its largest paw form to send the maximum amount of water he can in Bokuto’s direction.

The sun’s long left its zenith by the time they drag themselves to shore, wringing out their clothes and leaving them on a branch to dry. (Tetsurou has to do it for Bokuto, of course. It’s a strange day when Bokuto’s the one to provide instructions, while he picks apart the wet laces as best as he can. He vows to buy velcro strips for the rest the next time he visits, to ease the burden off Akaashi and Konoha.) It’s still brightly lit, and the water sparkles, dappled with shadows. Bokuto’s eyes are a pure, shining gold as he brushes Tetsurou’s hand with one damp wing and whispers, “I wanna see more.”

Tetsurou knows that feeling, of being afraid to break a sacred non-silence. He only nods, and leads the way.

They’re just far enough away from most of civilisation and far enough into the forest for it to calm itself around them, revealing its smallest and quietest secrets to two boisterous visitors trying their best to be respectful: a tiny stream no wider than Tetsurou’s forearm, breaking away from the river and flowing staunchly uphill; a huge butterfly chrysalis hanging at the entrance of a cave, with curling patterns as iridescent as moonlight; a small copse of trees with branches like vines, covered in dozens of unopened blue buds hanging over the river. Tetsurou’s sandals have long been abandoned by the riverbank, and the firm, cool soil underneath his feet feels as much like home as their own forest, like a lost-lost great-aunt with countless keepsakes to show and stories to tell. 

And Bokuto’s pressed close, always beside him, never failing to gasp at the tiniest of wonders. A ladybug the colour of the sunrise. Two crows, bickering in children’s rhymes and old song-spells. Bokuto sings along to a poem about a little boy and his dog, and Tetsurou swears up and down to him that he saw a fig ripen as he sang. And then the forest shows them the interior of a hollowed tree, smoothened and reflective as a mirror, and Tetsurou looks into it and sees himself blinking back with eyes full of magic and wonder, and there’s Bokuto at his side, lips parted in surprised delight.

He doesn’t know what he’s doing, but the light is fading fast and the forest is enchanting, and so is the way Bokuto, a child of the city’s steel and smog, takes in everything like he’d been starving for it his whole life. He doesn’t know what he’s doing but he catches Bokuto by the waist anyway, and puts his face into his bare shoulder, where skin and feathers meet.

It’s a heart-stopping minute, but Bokuto finally tilts his own head to rest on Tetsurou’s hair, a soft, firm wing pressing against his back. They stay like that for a while, watching the mirror, watching each other. The lying, shape-changing _yokai_ , and the rapacious harpy. Tetsurou laughs, because it’s funny. Bokuto laughs, because Bokuto always laughs when someone does, takes that laughter and multiplies it and makes it something special.

They sit under the shade of the tree Bokuto had knocked Tetsurou out of, watching the sky darken from blue to navy to black, polishing off the last of Bokuto’s apples, cores and all, then burying the stems beside the great roots. “Are there going to be fireflies here?” Bokuto asks, raising his voice a little to be heard over the rushing water.

“There’s always fireflies where there’s magic.”

“I never see fireflies around you.”

“Shut up.”

Bokuto hums in the way he does when he’s pleased, though Tetsurou doesn’t so much as hear it than feel it vibrate against his arm. “I can’t wait.”

“You’ll love it,” Tetsurou says as the dusk envelops them, hoping his voice doesn’t tremor and give away how his heart is hammering inside his chest. “It’s going to be beautiful, and—”

He’s cut off by Bokuto gasping and pointing somewhere behind him. “Kuroo, look!” he hisses.

Tetsurou looks.

The buds on the vine-branches glow with a soft, blue light, slowly unfurling their petals one by one and illuminating the tree. The last of the sky’s light goes out, and the glow of the tree rivals both the moon and the stars. Then smaller, brighter specks of gold flicker and float towards the blooms, moving from one glowing flower to the next, and the next, and the next. Each pollinated flower then breaks off its stem and flutters downward, one by one, into the river, until the tree is empty and the waters are filled with blue blooms and thousands of fireflies. 

“You’re right,” Bokuto says, pressed up as close as he can to Tetsurou, the smile audible in his voice even though Tetsurou can barely see it on his face. “They really are beautiful.”

The glow of the petals slowly disperse—seemingly running into the river itself, but the light of a hundred flowers might have created that illusion—but the water continues to carry the blooms carefully downstream, as gently as a cautious hand with pieces of glass.

Darkness and chill creeps in around them as the last of the flowers start to fade. “We gotta go now,” Bokuto says, ruffling his wings. “Everyone should be gone from the gorge by this hour.”

Tetsurou curls up into himself, dipping his toes into the water.

“Kuroo,” urges Bokuto, “Yaku needs us.”

“I’m tired,” says Tetsurou. The water is even colder than it was in the day, even though it’s in the middle of summer. As though this beautiful forest was a different place altogether. A different country. A different world.

Bokuto stands up, and his comforting warmth leaves Tetsurou’s side. “We have to go now.” Leaves crunch under his feet as he makes his way to where their clothes are drying. “C’mon, help me pick everything up, I can’t do this by myself.”

It’s freezing beside the river, so Tetsurou gets up and does Bokuto’s shirt laces for him, then pulls on his own. He picks up his backpack and slings it over his shoulder, and loops Bokuto’s satchel over his head.

Bokuto watches him silently throughout all this, and while Tetsurou gets his sandals on, he says, as quiet as he can over the sound of the waterfall, “Kai’s waiting at home for you, with all the kids.”

“He has Yaku,” Tetsurou says, without a tinge of bitterness in his voice.

“He won’t,” replies Bokuto in that same, soft, straightforward voice, “if we’re still here when the sun rises.”

Tetsurou inhales, and lets the magic flow into his form, filling the nooks and crannies and smoothing over his flaws and amplifying his strength. He can hear his heartbeat, the erratic pumping of his blood. He can hear Bokuto’s heartbeat, heavy, but steady. He opens his eyes, and he can see every flower in the stream as clearly as if they were right in front of him and still glowing. When Tetsurou exhales, he’s power and cunning and strength and the perfect predator and everything he really, really isn’t.

He pauses to look at Bokuto, wings primed and ready to leap. Bokuto’s unafraid—his heartbeat doesn’t change, and he regards Tetsurou as if he wasn't a being capable of snapping his neck in a second. As if he were just a not-kid trying to save his family, and everyone else to come.

“Let’s do this,” Bokuto says, with a grin.

 

Paws landing soundlessly onto the massive rocks of the gorge, Tetsurou tastes the air as he waits for Bokuto. It smells like damp and trees and something else, something like how he’d imagine the moon would smell like—it’s definitely here. The moment he hears the distinctive ruffling of wings landing safely beside him, he launches himself into the darkness of the deepest part of the gorge.

But then he’s falling for a second longer than he’d expected, and his front paw hits the water at an awkward angle, and he can’t halt the panicked yowl that escapes him.

“Kuroo!” Bokuto shouts down after him, panic quickly colouring his voice. “Kuroo, say something!”

Tetsurou hisses back. _I’m fine, just hurt my right hand. I’ll be fine._

A muffled curse. “If you say so,” calls Bokuto, sounding unconvinced. “I’m going down there if you can’t do it.”

_We’ve already been through this. You’ll get stuck down here._

“At least we’d be stuck together?”

_… Fair enough._

The great thing about having four legs is that a triangle is only slightly less effective than a rectangle in terms of stability—triangles are supposed to be the most stable shape, Tetsurou recalls from his brief delving into the complicated art of bridge-making, not that it helps with the pain—and Tetsurou manages to limp his way further through the water and into the darkness just fine. The moon shines bright, but his eyes are almost next to useless in spotting small objects, here. His only option is to follow the moon-scent.

And there, in a bit of soil behind a boulder, completely hidden from the sun, sits a small golden dandelion.

Tetsurou starts to sigh, then stops when he notices the flower tremble. _I found it, he tells Bokuto._

“Yeah!” Bokuto cheers into the gorge, and the bright sound bounces around the darkness in an almost tangible way. “That was a bit too loud,” he admits. “Please do what you gotta do and get out quick!”

 _I hear you,_ Tetsurou sends back, unable to hide the amusement in his words. He gets an offended scoff in response.

He shifts back into his human form and examines his hand. It’s nothing too terrible for now, but it’s probably going to be hell when he wakes up tomorrow, though his left will do for now. As gently as he possibly can, he curls his finger around the fragile stem of the dandelion and twists it. It breaks, jostling the seeds just a bit, but not hard enough for them to scatter just yet. Tetsurou takes a deep breath, points it towards the space behind the boulder, and blows.

The shining golden seeds float all over the shadow of the boulder, each one somehow avoiding the moonlight. At least one seed would germinate, Tetsurou know, leaving a flower for the next person who might need it.

He’s reaching for the zip-lock plastic in his bag to put the stem in when there’s a frantic rustling of feathers at the entrance to the gorge. “Bokuto!” he calls. “Bokuto, are you there?”

Only silence greets him, at first. Then there’s a loud pattering of footsteps, and Tetsurou barely manages to throw himself behind a second boulder before a beam of flashlight shines into the gorge. “Hello!” shouts someone. A security guard? Night patrol? “Is there anyone down here? Did someone fall down here? Please respond! Hello!”

Behind the safety of the rock, Tetsurou considers his options as his pants soak with freezing water for the second time in one day. One, stay hidden and reunite with Bokuto once the night guard leaves, probably prompting a dangerous and ultimately futile search for any fallen people. Or two, give himself up.

Tetsurou glares at the far side of the gorge. He never was any good at lying.

The night guard doesn’t seem to want to leave, continuing to shout into the gorge. Tetsurou can hear his heart pounding, though he can’t tell if it’s just a side effect from staying in his _yokai_ form for too long. He needs to do something, or Bokuto would, and it’s the last thing he needs.

What would Yaku do in this situation? What would Kai do? What would Kenm—

—the drawstring bag. Kenma’s gift. 

He retrieves it from his backpack as quietly as he can. It’s red silk, with gold and white embroidering. It’s also surprisingly heavy, for a bag so small. _I hope you gave me something good, Kenma,_ he thinks, and yanks the bag open.

A piece of paper flutters out of the bag with the kanji for ‘owl’ scrawled onto it, and lands at Tetsurou’s feet.

Tetsurou stuffs the bag into his pocket and covers his ears as a barred owl zips out in a soft burst of light, heading right for the night guard.

Once Ukki’s relentless screeching and pecking fades out of earshot, and only after he’s absolutely sure no one’s going to see him that he turns back into his _yokai_ form, and leaps out of the gorge in one jump.

Bokuto’s beside him in a heartbeat. “Kuroo! I saw Ukki? What happened? Does your hand hurt?”

Tetsurou shakes his front paw and winces. _It’s okay, he manages. Ukki got me out of there. But I can’t leave now._

“What? What does that mean? Why? Wh—hey!” Bokuto half-shrieks as Tetsurou shifts back into his human form again for the second time in ten minutes and immediately sways on the spot. There aren’t any hands to catch him, but a strong shoulder and a firm wing is enough, for now.

“I have to stay here so the night guard doesn’t send a search party after someone who doesn’t exist.” The world stops spinning from magic overload, and he removes his hands from Bokuto’s chest. “How far can you fly at a sustained speed?”

“Far enough? Wait a sec.” Bokuto frowns. “Are you telling me to go? I’m not leaving you!”

“I have a car, I’ll be fine. I just need to make sure no one gets hurt trying to look for me.” He’s never seen Bokuto frown this hard. “I’ll be fine.”

“The van's so far from here.”

“I sprained my hand, not my legs. I can shift them so I can walk for longer. No, I won’t pass out from having cat legs,” he says, interrupting Bokuto with a raised hand.

“Fine. Fine,” says Bokuto, clearly upset, clearly trying to keep it down, and clearly failing. Tetsurou wishes he wasn’t the cause of it, and yet. And yet. “How will you find your way there?”

And yet, something in his chest aches at knowing that he’s important enough to make the most honest and good-hearted harpy he knows worry. He looks up at the trees surrounding them, and at the night sky. “The forest will show me the way,” he says, and knows he means it.

Tetsurou puts the zip-lock in his bag into Bokuto’s satchel, and ties a dead-knot just to be sure the bag doesn’t fall out halfway. Then he loops the strap of the satchel as close to Bokuto’s body as he can, and ties it off with another knot. Bokuto looks like he’s about to combust. “I should’ve been quieter,” he says.

“You kept me going,” Tetsurou counters, punching Bokuto’s shoulder. “And because you’re here now, you can take this back home for me.”

Bokuto Koutarou—savage harpy, evolved to be rid of their small stature and terrible greed but not of their ravenous hunger, capable of shredding wood and the occasional piece of stone with his teeth and talons—leans over and kisses Kuroo Tetsurou on the cheek.

“I’ll be waiting,” he says, voice soft, "with Yaku." And then he runs and leaps and snaps his wings open and he’s nothing more than a speck in the sky by the time the draft from his flight dissipates enough for Tetsurou to open his eyes 

He never tires of watching Bokuto fly.

 

The first thing Tetsurou sees when he reaches home, when he reaches his own forest in Tokyo, when he steps into his little rickety wooden house, is Yaku sitting with Inuoka’s head in his lap. Their little ones are asleep on every surface—Lev sprawled across the feet of a disgruntled-looking but almost certainly temporarily comatose Kenma, and Kai flanked on either side by Fukunaga and Taketora, with a softly snoring Shibayama in his arms.

And Bokuto, curled up in a corner as small as he can, completely unmoving if not for the steady rise and fall of his chest. His mud-stained satchel rests open beside him, its precious contents gone.

 _Shh,_ Yaku mouths at him, eyes bright and shining from the early morning light, the only hint of his prior sickness the darkened veins snaking down his hands and wrists. _They’re sleeping._

Tetsurou nods once, then again and again as he slumps onto the floor as quietly as he can, trying to staunch the flow of tears from his eyes with his one good hand. “I’m home,” he chokes out, even though it makes Fukunaga stir and mumble. Even though it makes Bokuto snap right awake, shooting upright and pulling his wings defensively towards himself until he spots Tetsurou in the doorway. And then Tetsurou learns that no matter how tired a harpy is, they can still propel themselves forward for a second at terrifying speeds, and can easily knock over their favourite fully grown _yokai_ as well as wake an entire house.

“I’m home,” Tetsurou says again as he’s mobbed by his family, even as Bokuto wails and wails and refuses to move. “I’m home.”

“Welcome home,” Yaku tells him.

**Author's Note:**

> DEAR RECIP  
>   
> my dear salsae  
> this sure was a wild ride!!!!! i loved so many of your prompts i had no idea which to write, so i just picked the one with that lovely lovely song as a vibe! it's a song with so much emotion, and i hope i did it justice,,,... when i read your dear creator letter i felt so many things click and it's really really really such an honour to write for you. honestly i wish i could give you so much more, and i hope you weren't too worried about your mystery work not showing up yet! it's here now in its full glory, and i can only hope you've enjoyed it. than kyou for existing  
>   
> love and peace out,  
> itsamystery.mp3


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